The Rev. George Austen wrote the following letter to his sister-in-law Mrs. Walter on December 17, 1775:

“You have doubtless been for some time in expectation of hearing from Hampshire, and perhaps wondered a little we were in our old age grown such bad reckoners but so it was, for Cassey certainly expected to have been brought to bed a month ago: however last night the time came, and without a great deal of warning, everything was soon happily over. We have now another girl, a present plaything for her sister Cassy and a future companion. She is to be Jenny, and seems to me as if she would be as like Henry, as Cassy is to Neddy. Your sister thank God is pure well after it, and sends her love to you and my brother…” (Austen Papers, 32-3)

I have found “A Limerick for Jane Austen’s Birthday” by Lois White Wilcox, published in Persuasions, No. 14, 1992 ~ this says it all!

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For the 233rd birthday of Jane,

Let us make it perfectly plain,

T’would be most sagacious

And not AUSTENtatious

To praise her achievements again.

You who see through the fake and the twit,

At your feet (by your fire), we will sit.

As Janeites we’ll boast

It’s our privilege to toast

Our mistress of wisdom and wit!

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And from The Writer’s Almanac December 16, 2008:

It’s the birthday of Jane Austen, born in Hampshire, England (1775). Today, members of Jane Austen Societies all over the world are celebrating her birthday with a tea or luncheon.

Jane Austen published her books anonymously; the byline stated that the book was by “a Lady.” Not many people read her books while she was alive, though she had a small, devoted readership. She died in 1817. Five decades later, her nephew published A Memoir of Jane Austen (1869), which generated widespread interest in his aunt and led to the reprinting of her novels. It touched off a sort of mania for Jane Austen in the 1880s, known as “Austenolatry.” But it wasn’t until the 1940s — more than 100 years after she died — that Austen’s work became the focus of substantial academic scholarship. Austen is now standard reading on high school and college curricula.

There are numerous groups devoted to her work, and thousands of self-proclaimed “Janeites.” The Janeites in the U.S. are likely members of JASNA, the Jane Austen Society of North America, “dedicated to the enjoyment and appreciation of Jane Austen and her writing.” At its first meeting in 1979, 100 people gathered at the Gramercy Park Hotel in Manhattan. Today, the Jane Austen Society of North America has more than 4,000 members and 60 regional groups. JASNA organizes tours to England to visit Austen-themed sites. It publishes an annual online journal, Persuasions On-Line.* And it holds an annual fall meeting in a North American city, and over the course of three days, there are lectures by Austen scholars, English country dancing, and picnics like the one described at Box Hill in Emma, where each picnicker brings a dish to share and carries it in a wicker basket. There’s also an annual Jane Austen essay contest. This year’s essay prompt is about siblings in Austen’s novels: “Some siblings act as foils to each other; others are in competition; still others are mutually supportive and encouraging. Examine the importance of siblings in one or two Austen novels.”

Jane Austen said, “A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”

And, “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”

And, “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”

[* I would also add here a reference to the annual PRINT publication Persuasions and a link to the JASNA.org site for more information on Jane Austen and the Jane Austen Society of North America]